Wednesday, December 9, 2015

(RT) – Russia
has, for the first time, targeted Islamic State targets in Syria with Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles
launched from a submarine in the Mediterranean Sea, according to Russia’s
Defense Minister.

Russia’s warships based in the Caspian and
Mediterranean seas launched similar missiles
targeting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) positions in late November.
This is the first time that Russia
has targeted IS in Syria
from a submarine.

“[The missiles] targeted two major terrorist positions in
the territory of Raqqa,” he said.

“We can say with absolute confidence that significant damage
has been inflicted upon ammunition warehouses and a mine production plant, as
well as the oil infrastructure.”

Earlier on Tuesday, a source within the Russian Ministry of
Defense revealed that the Rostov-on-Don, equipped with modern Russian Kalibr
cruise missiles, had appeared near the Syrian coast.

Shoigu stated that in the past three days Russian Air
Forces have carried out over 300 sorties hitting 600 terrorist targets.

“In the past three days, the operation involved Tu-22 planes
as well as warplanes from the Khmeimim airbase. In total we carried out
300 sorties and hit 600 various targets,” he said adding that all sorties
were performed with the backing of Su-30 fighter jets.

Speaking to the president, Shoigu also said that the flight
recorder of the Russian Su-24, recently downed by Turkey near the Syrian-Turkish
border, has been found and presented it to Putin.

Putin told Shoigu that it should be opened only in the
presence of international experts.

Russia has been conducting airstrikes
targeting Islamic State (IS, former ISIS, ISIL) militants and other
terrorist groups in Syria
since September 30. The air campaign was launched after a formal request from Damascus. Russian jets
have been carrying out sorties from Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia.

Turkey has been insisting that it downed
the Russian Su-24 bomber on November 24 because the jet had violated its
airspace for “17 seconds” and said that the jet’s crew had been repeatedly warned prior to the attack.

Moscow has denied Ankara’s claims, saying
that the Turkish F-16 attacked the Su-24 without warning and over Syrian
territory. The surviving Russian pilot, Konstantin Murakhtin, stated that
neither he nor Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Peshkov, who was killed by Turkmen rebel
machine gun fire after ejecting, had received any radio or visual warning.

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an)
— Thousands of Palestinians attended the funeral of 19-year-old Malik Akram
Shahin on Tuesday morning, hours after he was shot dead by Israeli forces
during a detention raid into Duheisha refugee camp south of Bethlehem.A Ma’an
reporter said the funeral procession set off from Beit Jala governmental
hospital at 10:30 a.m. for Shahin’s home in Duheisha camp where his family paid
their last respects. The 19-year-old youth had four sisters.Mourners joining
the funeral procession chanted slogans condemning the Israeli violations against
the Palestinians.Shahin was shot in the head during a predawn detention raid
into the refugee camp on Tuesday morning. Local residents said that Israeli
soldiers fired live rounds, tear gas canisters, and stun grenades
“indiscriminately” through the camp’s
arrow alleys.

Friends of Malek Shahin, a 19 year-old Palestinian who was
killed in clashes with Israeli security forces, carry his body during his
funeral procession in the Dheisheh refugee camp near the West Bank town of
Bethlehem on December 8, 2015. (AFP/Musa al-Shaer)

After soldiers shot Shahin, he was reportedly “left bleeding
for long before he was evacuated to the public hospital in Beit Jala, where
medics pronounced him dead,” locals said.An Israeli army spokesperson had no
information of his death, but she said that Israeli soldiers had opened fire
after Palestinians threw “pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails” at them. The
left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine later said that Shahin
had been one of its supporters. The group said in a statement that he fell
“during fierce clashes with Israeli troops who raided the camp to detain young
men affiliated to the PFLP.”

Following his death, a Bethlehem
committee announced a halt to all business across the district and stores and
government institutions were closed. Clashes were reported to have broken out
in Tuqu village in Bethlehem
after schools were closed, although no injuries were reported. At least 114
Palestinians have now been killed in just over two months of unrest across the
occupied Palestinian territory.

What’s certain is that, geo-economically, Syria goes way
beyond a civil war; it’s a vicious Pipelineistan power play in a dizzying
complex chessboard where the Big Prize will represent a major win in the
21st century energy wars

by Pepe Escobar

Syria is an energy war. With the heart of
the matter featuring a vicious geopolitical competition between two proposed
gas pipelines, it is the ultimate Pipelinestan war, the term I coined long ago for
the 21st century imperial energy battlefields.

Image credit: Strategic Culture Foundation

It all started in 2009, when Qatar
proposed to Damascus the construction of a pipeline
from its own North Field – contiguous with the South Pars field, which belongs
to Iran – traversing Saudi Arabia, Jordan
and Syria all the way to Turkey, to
supply the EU.

Damascus, instead, chose in 2010 to
privilege a competing project, the $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria, also know as
«Islamic pipeline». The deal was formally announced in July 2011, when the
Syrian tragedy was already in motion. In 2012, a Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) was signed with Iran.

Until then, Syria
was dismissed, geo-strategically, as not having as much oil and gas compared to
the GCC petrodollar club. But insiders already knew about
its importance as a regional energy corridor. Later on, this was enhanced with
the discovery of serious offshore oil and gas potential.

Iran for its part is an established oil
and gas powerhouse. Persistent rumblings in Brussels – still unable to come up with a
unified European energy policy after over 10 years – did account for barely
contained excitement over the Islamic pipeline; that would be the ideal
strategy to diversify from Gazprom. But Iran was under US and EU
nuclear-related sanctions.

That ended up turning into a key strategic reason, at least
for the Europeans, for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear dossier; a
«rehabilitated» (to the West) Iran
is able to become a key source of energy to the EU.

Yet, from the point of view of Washington, a geostrategic problem lingered:
how to break the

Tehran-Damascus alliance. And ultimately, how to break the
Tehran-Moscow alliance.

The «Assad must go» obsession in Washington is a multi-headed hydra. It
includes breaking a Russia-Iran-Iraq-Syria alliance (now very much in effect as
the «4+1» alliance, including Hezbollah, actively fighting all strands of
Salafi Jihadism in Syria).
But it also includes isolating energy coordination among them, to the benefit
of the Gulf petrodollar clients/vassals linked to US energy giants.

Thus Washington’s strategy
so far of injecting the proverbial Empire of Chaos logic into Syria; feeding the flames of internal chaos, a
pre-planed op by the CIA, Saudi Arabia
and Qatar, with the endgame
being regime change in Damascus.

An Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline is unacceptable in the Beltway
not only because US vassals lose, but most of all because in currency war terms
it would bypass the petrodollar. Iranian gas from South Pars would be traded in
an alternative basket of currencies.

Compound it with the warped notion, widely held in the
Beltway, that this pipeline would mean Russia further controlling the gas flow
from Iran, the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. Nonsense. Gazprom already said it
would be interested in some aspects of the deal, but this is essentially an
Iranian project. In fact, this pipeline would represent an alternative to
Gazprom.

Still, the Obama administration’s position was always to
«support» the Qatar pipeline
«as a way to balance Iran»
and at the same time «diversify Europe’s gas supplies away from Russia.» So
both Iran and Russia were
configured as «the enemy».

Turkey at crossroads

Qatar’s project, led by Qatar Petroleum,
predictably managed to seduce assorted Europeans, taking account of vast US pressure and Qatar’s powerful lobbies in major
European capitals. The pipeline would ply some of the route of a
notorious Pipelineistan opera, the now defunct Nabucco, a project
formerly headquartered in Vienna.

Courtesy Strategic Culture Foundation

So implicitly, from the beginning, the EU was actually
supporting the push towards regime change in Damascus
– which so far may have cost Saudi Arabia
and Qatar
at least $4 billion (and counting). It was a scheme very similar to the 1980s
Afghan jihad; Arabs financing/weaponizing a multinational bunch of
jihadis/mercenaries, helped by a strategic go-between (Pakistan in the case of Afghanistan, Turkey
in the case of Syria),
but now directly fighting a secular Arab republic.

It got much rougher, of course, with the US, UK,
France and Israel
progressively turbo-charging all manner of covert ops privileging «moderate»
rebels and otherwise, always targeting regime change.

The game now has expanded even more, with the recently
discovered offshore gas wealth across the Eastern Mediterranean – in offshore Israel, Palestine,
Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt,
Syria, and Lebanon. This
whole area may hold as much as 1.7 billion barrels of oil and up to 122
trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And that could be a mere third of the total
undiscovered fossil fuel wealth in the Levant.

From Washington’s point of
view, thegame is clear: to try to isolate Russia, Iran
and a «regime-unchanged» Syria
as much as possible from the new Eastern Mediterranean
energy bonanza.

And that brings us to Turkey
– now in the line of fire from Moscow
after the downing of the Su-24.

Ankara’s ambition, actually obsession, is
to position Turkey
as the major energy crossroads for the whole of the EU. 1) As a transit hub for
gas from Iran, Central Asia
and, up to now, Russia
(the Turkish Stream gas pipeline is suspended, not cancelled). 2) As a hub for major gas
discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean. 3)
And as a hub for gas imported from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in
northern Iraq.

Turkey plays the role of key energy
crossroads in the Qatar
pipeline project. But it’s always important to remember that Qatar’s pipeline does not need to go through Syria and Turkey. It could easily cross Saudi Arabia, the Red Sea, Egypt and reach the Eastern
Mediterranean.

So, in the Big Picture, from Washington’s
point of view, what matters most of all, once again, is «isolating» Iran from Europe.
Washington’s game is to privilege Qatar as a source, not Iran, and Turkey as the hub, for the EU to
diversify from Gazprom.

This is the same logic behind the construction of the costly
Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, facilitated in Azerbaijan by Zbigniew «Grand
Chessboard» Brzezinski in person.

As it stands, prospects for both pipelines are less than
dismal. The Vienna peace process concerning Syria will go nowhere as long as Riyadh insists on keeping its weaponized outfits in the
«non-terrorist» list, and Ankara
keeps allowing free border flow of jihadis while engaging in dodgy business
with stolen Syrian oil.

What’s certain is that, geo-economically, Syria goes way
beyond a civil war; it’s a vicious Pipelineistan power play in a dizzying
complex chessboard where the Big Prize will represent a major win in the
21st century energy wars.

(RT) – Islamic State’s campaign of terror in Iraq and Syria
is being aided by the weapons indirectly supplied by the very countries trying
to fight them, with the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 giving the terrorist
group access to “a large and lethal arsenal.”

The claims were made in a study by Amnesty International,
entitled ‘Taking Stock: The arming of Islamic State,’ which was
released on Tuesday. Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) acquired most of
its munitions by raiding weapons depots of the Iraqi government army. However,
the capture of weapons on the battlefield, defections and an illicit trade have
helped to keep their supplies well-stocked.

The report states how, after capturing Iraq’s second largest city Mosul in 2014, IS terrorists were able to
acquire “a windfall of internationally manufactured arms from Iraqi stockpiles,
including US-manufactured weapons and military vehicles.” The terrorist group
was quick to show off the captured loot as they paraded the hardware on social
media.

“Decades of free-flowing arms into Iraq meant that
when IS took control of these areas, they were like children in a sweetshop.
The fact that countries including the UK
have ended up inadvertently arming IS should give us pause over current weapons
deals,” said Amnesty UK’s
arms program director, Oliver Sprague.

Risks need to be far more carefully calculated, and we
shouldn’t wait for this worst case scenario to happen before acting to prevent
sales of arms which could fuel atrocities.”

Among the advanced weaponry in the IS arsenal are
man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), guided anti-tank missiles and
armored fighting vehicles, as well as assault rifles like the Russian and
Chinese-produced Kalashnikov series and the US M16 and Bushmaster, the report
states.

“The vast and varied weaponry being used by the armed group
calling itself Islamic State is a textbook case of how reckless arms trading
fuels atrocities on a massive scale,”said Patrick Wilcken, researcher on Arms
Control, Security Trade and Human Rights at Amnesty International.

“Poor regulation and lack of oversight of the immense arms
flows into Iraq
going back decades have given IS and other armed groups a bonanza of
unprecedented access to firepower,” he added.

However, it seems Washington
is refusing to learn from its past mistakes. Between 2011 and 2013, the US signed
billions of dollars’ worth of arms contracts with the Iraqi government, and by
2014 it had delivered more than $500 million worth of small arms and
ammunition.

Congress also passed a bill in December 2014 giving the
green light to $64 billion in funding for overseas war ventures in
countries such as Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Syria. However,
the White House was left with its tail between its legs after a $500 million
program to train ‘moderate’ rebels ended in abject failure, with just a handful
of fighters making the grade.

Even more disastrous was the fact that a stockpile of
weapons given to the US-trained rebels ended up in the hands of terrorists,
after the so-called ‘moderates’ willingly handed it over to groups such as
Al-Nusra Front soon after crossing into Syria.

“My concern from the beginning was that we were going to end
up unwittingly aiding and abetting terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda,” Chris
Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, told Sputnik news agency in October,
adding: “I am sorry that my concern turned out to be true.”

Sunjeev Bery, the advocacy director for Middle East North
Africa at Amnesty International USA was equally scathing, saying, “In its
rush to ‘degrade and destroy’ the Islamic State armed group, the Obama
administration must not trample its international human rights
obligations,” while also adding that this was “simply opening the
floodgates” to put more weapons into the hands of armed groups who have
“committed serious human rights abuses in both Iraq and Syria.”

To really make the U.S.
safe from Middle East terrorism, Washington
will have to dump Israel,
play hardball with Saudi Arabia,
and swear off the regime-change policy that has so disastrously driven its
actions in Iraq, Libya and Syria.

by Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Part I – World War on ISIS

I was waiting for a doctor’s appointment with only the
magazine rack for company. I usually don’t pay much attention to news
magazines, seeing as how the range of politically acceptable points of view are
pretty narrow in such sources. However, with time on my hands, I picked
up Time magazine (November 30 – December 7 issue), the cover of which
announced, “World War on ISIS.”

I focused on a particularly interesting (and mercifully
short) piece on this topic entitled, “ISIS Will Strike America.” No doubt millions of readers
will focus on this bit of prognostication. It is written by Michael Morell,
former Deputy Director of the CIA. Morrell begins by telling us he has been an
intelligence officer for 33 years and in that capacity his job is to “describe
for a President threats we face as a nation” and then “look the President in
the eye when his policies are not working and say so.” Given that Morrell
managed the staff that produced George W. Bush’s briefings, one wonders if he
ever practiced what he preached.

In any case, Morrell now figuratively looks his readers in
the eyes and tells them that “ISIS poses a
threat to the homeland” through “its ability to radicalize young Americans [why
just the young?] to conduct attacks here.” In truth, this potentiality has been
known for years and various police agencies and the FBI have even been involved
in setting up various entrapment schemes to prove the point. One might assume
that they had to do this to counter the fact that an American’s chance of being harmed by Muslim terrorists
is less than his or her chance of being struck by lightning.

Nonetheless, the probability of Morrell’s prediction coming
true is certainly not zero, as the massacre in San Bernardino demonstrates. Yet, comparing
attacks which have possible radical Islamic connections to the almost weekly
gun-related attacks in schools, health clinics, court houses, movie theaters,
domestic scenes and various street corner venues, we still have a very long way
to go before ISIS becomes our number one source of domestic violence. However,
Morrell does not put his “threat assessment” in this context – either to his
reading audience or, one can assume, to the presidents with whom he has made
eye contact.

Part II – Republican Presidential Candidates

I have the uncomfortable feeling that every Republican
presidential candidate has also read this edition of Time magazine,
because suddenly they are all aping the cover page’s battle cry of “World War
on ISIS.” The trigger here is the recent
tragedy in San Bernardino, California. According to the New York
Times (NYT) of 5 December 2012 the San
Bernardino attack has taken a “diffused and chaotic”
Republican campaign and “reordered” it around the threat of Islamic terrorism.
Thus, Chris Christie of New Jersey
pronounced that “Our nation is under siege:… What I believe is we’re facing the
next world war.” Ted Cruz of Texas
said, “This nation needs a wartime president.” Jeb Bush of Florida, sounding a
lot like his brother (whose foreign policy incompetence started this epoch with
the U.S. invasion of Iraq), described “Islamic terrorism” as “having declared
war on us” and being “out to destroy our way of life” while “attacking our
freedom.”

In the same 5 December issue of the NYT, James
Comey, Director of the FBI, said that the San Bernardino massacre
“investigation so far has developed indications of radicalization [of] the
killers and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations.”
Actually, it sounds as if something is missing here. Certainly, the husband-and-wife
team who carried out the attack were seriously agitated and had built for
themselves a small arsenal of firearms and bombs. However, according to the FBI
there is “no evidence that the killers were part of a larger group or terrorist
cell.” Only late in this game, on the day of the attack, did one of the killers
“pledge allegiance to the Islamic State in a Facebook post.” So it might be
useful to ask if there were personal grievances that disaffected them and then,
later, a “radicalization” process supplied additional justification for their
acts? None of these fine points will mean much on the national stage.The
Republicans are in full apocalyptic exaggeration mode and no doubt the
Democrats will soon be swept along.

Part III – Guns

n truth there is a dual nature to the present “threat
against the homeland.” The first and major aspect of the threat is the utterly
insane nature of the country’s gun laws (or lack thereof), which allows
practically every adult to arm him or herself to the teeth. The claim that it
is access to all manner of assault weapons that keeps us all safe in our homes
defies common sense and really constitutes an example of Orwellian doublespeak.
In my estimation there is no organization in the world, including ISIS, more dangerous to American society than the
National Rifle Association which insists that we all still live in some variant
of the Wild West.

Of course the Republicans dismiss the gun issue out of hand.
Marco Rubio of Florida
made the comment “As if somehow terrorists care about what our gun laws are. France has some
of the strictest gun laws in the world and they have no problem acquiring an
arsenal to kill people.” Actually, Rubio is wrong about France. If you
want to see strict gun control you have to go to the UK,
Canada, Japan or Australia (none of which,
incidentally, prohibit hunting weapons). Of course, he is correct that
terrorists don’t care about gun laws. However, his definition of who is a
terrorist is woefully inadequate.

Rubio and his fellow Republicans think that terrorism is
only the violence associated with Islamic radicals, but that is just nonsense.
Try to put yourself in the minds of those being attacked. If you are a child in
a classroom or student on a college campus, a doctor or nurse in a health
clinic, a judge and other official in a courtroom, a patron in a movie theater,
or someone in any of a hundred other public and private American venues being
shot up in ever more frequent episodes, does the religion or ideology of the
attacker matter, in any way, to the terror you feel? No. And it wouldn’t matter
to Mr. Rubio either if he found himself a victim.

So here is the truth of the matter: the ubiquitous presence
of guns suffuses our society with the constant potential for terrorist violence
(and the U.S.
being one of the largest gun merchants to dubious governments abroad does much
to transfer the potential throughout the world). The motivation of the one who
triggers this violence is irrelevant to the terror it releases. The result is
indeed an epidemic of terrorism in the United
States that needs to be addressed, but that cannot be
done by singling out ISIS. All that can do is
make things worse by directing public concern against the least of the factors
endangering them.

Nonetheless, that is what the politicians will do. They will
take up the cry of Islamic terrorism because it frees them from any immediate
need to take on the real – and politically dangerous – problem of gun control.
Most of them are cowards when it comes to hard truths and the difficult need to
lay them convincingly before the public. It is always more expedient to rile
the masses than educate them.

Part IV – Conclusion

Much of the present breast-beating over Islamic terrorism is
politically motivated exaggeration. Yet even here the U.S. government
will not do much other than spy on its own citizens with ever greater
intensity. To really make the U.S.
safe from Middle East terrorism, Washington
will have to dump Israel,
play hardball with Saudi Arabia,
and swear off the regime-change policy that has so disastrously driven its
actions in Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Even if by some political magic we are able to get rid of ISIS and its propaganda, we would still face domestically
bred terrorism. And this, of course, is the nature of the vast majority of our
mass violence and mayhem. The fault is in ourselves, be it with economic
inequality, recurring racism, xenophobia, or just a pervasive culture of
callousness ameliorated by nothing better than scattered volunteerism and a
constant demand for charity. And behind it all is what the New York
Times now calls “the gun epidemic” – an epidemic that weaponizes a
society that seems incapable of dealing with its own failures.

Any discussion, coverage, analysis, or debate of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict that sidesteps the nature and ideology of the
Israeli state is not only disingenuous and lacks credibility, but also
contributes to the deepening of the conflict, the continuous suffering of its
victims, and the illusion of finding a potential just and peaceful outcome.

SAMI AL-ARIAN

(Counterpunch) – In his novel 1984 George Orwell introduced the lexicon of Big
Brother’s Doublespeak in which “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance
is strength.” In today’s Western political circles and mainstream media
coverage of Palestine/Israel and political Zionism, one may add a host of other
phrases to this Orwellian Newspeak. Expressions that would fittingly describe
this coverage might include “racism is democracy, resistance is terrorism, and
occupation is bliss.”

If individuals were to rely solely on Western media outlets
as their source of information regarding the increasingly volatile situation in
the occupied Palestinian territories, especially Jerusalem, they would not only be perplexed
by the portrayals of victims and oppressors, but also confused about the
history and nature of the conflict itself. For instance, in the past few weeks,
in their coverage of the latest Palestinian uprising, most Western mainstream
media outlets, such as the New York Times, CNN, FOX, and BBC,virtually omitthe words “Israeli occupation,” or
“illegal Israeli settlements.” Seldom if ever do they mention the fact that has
been under illegal Israeli control for the past 48 years, or that the latest
confrontations were set off as a result of Israeli attempts to change the
status quo and force a joint jurisdiction of the Islamic holy sites within the
walls of old Jerusalem.

Theodore Herzl

Oftentimes Israel
and its enablers in the political and media arenas try to obfuscate basic facts
about the nature and history of the conflict. Despite these attempts, however,
the conflict is neither complicated nor has it existed for centuries. It is a
century-old modern phenomenon that emerged as a direct result of political
Zionism. This movement, founded by secular journalist Theodore Herzl in the
late 19th century, has incessantly attempted to transform Judaism from one
of the world’s great religious traditions into a nationalistic ethnic movement
with the aim of transferring Jews around the world to Palestine, while ethnically cleansing the
indigenous Palestinian population from the land of their ancestors. This is the
essence of the conflict, and thus all of Israel’s policies and actions can
only be understood by acknowledging this reality.

It might be understandable, if detestable, for Israel and its
Zionist defenders to circulate false characterizations of history and events to
advance their political agenda. But it is incomprehensible for those who claim
to advocate the rule of law, believe in the principle of self-determination,
and call for freedom and justice to fall for this propaganda or to become its
willing accomplices. In following much of the media coverage or political
analyses of the conflict, one is struck by the lack of historical context, the
deliberate disregard of empirical facts, and the contempt for established legal
constructs and precedents. Are the Palestinian territories disputed or
occupied? Do Palestinians have a legal right, embedded in international law, to
resist their occupiers, including the use of armed struggle, or is every means
of resistance considered terrorism? Does Israel
have any right to old Jerusalem
and its historical and religious environs? Is the protraction of the so-called
“cycle of violence” really coming proportionally from both sides of the
conflict? Is Israel
a true democracy? Should political Zionism be treated as a legitimate national
liberation movement (from whom?) while ignoring its overwhelmingly racist
manifestations? Is Israel
genuine about seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict? Can the U.S. really be
an honest peace-broker between the two sides as it has persistently promoted
itself in the region? The factual answers to these questions would undoubtedly
clear the fog and lead objective observers not only to a full understanding of
the conflict, but also to a deep appreciation of the policies and actions
needed to bring it to an end.

Occupation, Self-Determination, and International Law

There should be no disputing that the territories seized by Israel in June 1967, including east Jerusalem, are occupied.
Dozens of UN resolutions have passed since November 1967, including binding
Security Council resolutions calling on Israel
to withdraw from the occupied territories, which the ZionistState
has stubbornly refused to comply with. In fact, if there were any “disputed”
territories, they should be those Palestinian territories that Israel took in 1948, through a campaign of and military
conquests, which resulted in forcefully and illegally expelling over
800,000 Palestinians from their homes, villages, and towns, in order to make
room for thousands of Jews coming from Europe and other parts of the world.

Consequently, UN Resolution 194 mandated that these Palestinian
“refugees wishing to return to their homes … should be permitted to do so.”
This resolution has now remained unfulfilled for 67 years. There is also no
dispute in international law that Israel has been a belligerent
occupier triggering the application of all the relevant Geneva
Conventions as the Palestinian people have been under occupation since their
“territory is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.”

Furthermore, the right to self-determination for the
Palestinian people and their right to resist their occupiers by all means are
well established in international law. In 1960, UN
resolution 1514 adopted the “Declaration on the Granting of
Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.” It stated that, “All peoples
have the right to self-determination”, and that, “the subjection of peoples to
alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of
fundamental human rights and is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations.”
Ten years later the UN adopted Resolution 2625 which
called on its members to support colonized people or people under occupation
against their colonizers and occupiers. In fact, UN Resolution 3246 reaffirmed in 1974 “the legitimacy
of the peoples’ struggle for liberation form colonial and foreign domination
and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle.” Four
years later UN Resolution 33/24 also strongly confirmed “the
legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity,
national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign
occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle,” and “strongly
condemned all governments” that did not recognize “the right to
self-determination to the Palestinian people.”

As for occupied Jerusalem, the
UN Security Council adopted in 1980 two binding resolutions (476 and 478) by a vote of 14-0 (the US abstained and did not veto
either resolution.) Both resolutions condemned Israel’s attempt to change “the
physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure, (and) the
status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.” It also reaffirmed “the overriding
necessity to end the prolonged occupation of Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem,”
and called out Israel
as “the occupying power.” It further considered any changes to the city of Jerusalem as “a violation
of international law.”

A Palestinian man is detained by members of the Israeli
security forces.

The Palestinian people, whether under occupation or under
siege, in exile and blocked by Israel from returning to their homes, or denied
their right to self-determination, have the legitimate right to resist the
military occupation and its manifestations such as the denial of their freedom
and human rights, the confiscation of their lands, or the building and
expansion of on their lands. Although most Palestinians opt for the use
of nonviolent resistance as a prudent tactic against the brutality of the
occupation, international law does not, however, limit their resistance only to
the use of peaceful means. In essence, the right to legitimate armed
resistance, subject to international humanitarian law, is enshrined in
international law and cannot be denied to any people including the Palestinians
in their struggle to gain their freedom and exercise their right to
self-determination. Furthermore, international law does not confer any right on
the occupying power to use any force against their occupied subjects, in order
to maintain and sustain their occupation, including in self-defense. In short,
aggressors and land usurpers are by definition denied the use of force to subjugate
their victims. Consequently, as a matter of principle embedded in international
law and regardless of any political viability, strikes against military targets
including soldiers, armed settlers, or other tools and institutions of the
occupation are legitimate and any action against them, non-violent or
otherwise, cannot be condemned or deemed terrorism.

Furthermore, the argument regarding the validity of using
armed struggle against oppression and denial of political rights by tyrannical
and colonial regimes is well established in its favor. Patriot Patrick Henry
rallied his countrymen prior to the American Revolution in 1775 in his famous
call “give liberty or give me death.” Civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr.
even rejected pacifism in the face of aggression. He only questioned its
tactical significance when he stated “I contended that the debate over the
question of self-defense was unnecessary since few people suggested that
Negroes should not defend themselves as individuals when attacked. The
question was not whether one should use his gun when his home was attacked, but
whether it was tactically wise to use a gun while participating in an organized
demonstration.” Mahatma Gandhi saw active resistance as more honorable than
pacifism when he said “I would rather have India resort to arms in order to
defence her honour than that she would, in a cowardly manner, become or remain
a helpless witness to her own dishonour.” Nelson Mandela reflected on this
debate when he asserted that he resorted to armed struggle only when “all other
forms of resistance were no longer open”, and demanded that the Apartheid
regime “guarantee free political activity” to blacks before he would call
on his compatriots to suspend armed struggle. Accordingly, the debate over
whether the use of armed resistance against Israeli occupation advances the
cause of justice for Palestinians is not a question of legitimacy, but rather
of sound political strategy in light of the skewed balance of military power
and massive public support from peoples around the globe for their just
struggle.

Yet, the reality of the conflict actually reveals that the
Palestinian people have overwhelmingly been at the receiving end of the use of
ruthless Israeli violence and aggression since 1948. With the exception of the
1973 war (initiated by Egypt
and Syria to regain the
lands they lost in the 1967 war) every Arab-Israeli war in the past seven
decades (‘48, ’56, ‘67, ’78, ’82, ’02, etc.) was initiated by Israel and
resulted in more uprooting and misery to the Palestinians. Still, since 2008 Israel launched three
brutal wars against Gaza with devastating consequences. In the
2008/2009 war, Israel
killed 1417 Palestinians and lost 13 people including 9 soldiers. In the 2012
war, Israel
killed 167 Palestinians and lost 6 including 2 soldiers. And in the 2014 war, Israel killed
2104 Palestinians, including 539 children, with 475,000 people made homeless,
17,500 homes destroyed, while 244 schools and scores of hospitals and mosques
damaged. In that war Israel
lost 72 including 66 soldiers. In short, since late 2008 Israel killed
3688 Palestinians in its three declared wars and lost 91 including 77 soldiers.
Shamefully the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children has been amply
documented as over two thousand have been killed by Israel since
2000. This massive Israeli intentional use of violence against the
Palestinians, especially in Gaza (which has been under a crippling siege since
2007) was investigated, determined to constitute war crimes, and condemned by
the UN in the Goldstone Report, as well as by other human rights groups
such as Amnesty Internationaland Human Rights Watch.

The 1993 Oslo
process gave rise to the promise of ending decades of Israeli occupation. But
the process was rigged from the start as many of its participants have
recently admitted. It was an Israeli ploy to halt the first
Palestinian uprising and give Israel
the breathing room it needed to aggressively and permanently colonize the
West Bank including East Jerusalem. It was an
accord with a lopsided balance of power, as one side held all the cards and
gave no real concessions, and a much weaker side stripped of all its bargaining
chips. During this period the number of settlements in the West Bank more
than doubled and the number of settlers increased by more
than seven fold to over 600 thousand including in East
Jerusalem.

The world has none other than to acknowledge that Israel has no
intention of withdrawing or ending its occupation. After serving his first
stint as a prime minister, Netanyahu (shown here in a leaked video) while
visiting a settlement in 2001, admitted to his true intention of grabbing as
much as 98 percent of Palestinian territories in the West Bank and halting the
fraudulent Oslo
process. Believing that the camera was off, he spoke candidly to a group of
settlers about his strategic vision, plans, and tactics.

Netanyahu: This is how I broke the Oslo Accords with the
Palestinians

On his vision he assured them that “The settlements are
here. They are everywhere.” He stated, “I halted the fulfillment of the Oslo agreements. It’s
better to give two percent than 100 percent. You gave two percent but you
stopped the withdrawal.” He later added, “I gave my own interpretation to the
agreements in such a way that will allow me to stop the race back towards the
1967 borders.” As for the tactics, Netanyahu freely confessed his strategy of
causing so much pain to the Palestinians that they would submit to the
occupation rather than resist. He said, “The main thing is to strike them not
once but several times so painfully that the price they pay will be unbearable
causing them to fear that everything is about to collapse.” When he was
challenged that such a strategy might cause the world to consider Israel as the
aggressor, he dismissively said, “They can say whatever they want.” He also
implied how he was not concerned about American pressure. To the contrary he
asserted that he could easily manipulate Israel’s
main benefactor when he stated “America
is something you can easily maneuver and move in the right direction. I wasn’t
afraid to confront Clinton.
I wasn’t afraid to go against the UN.” Even though world leaders consider
Netanyahu a “liar” and they “can’t stand him” as shown in this exchange between
former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Barak Obama, no Western leader has
stood up to Israel, even though a British parliamentarian stated that 70 percent of
Europeans consider it a “danger to world’s peace.” But the obstructionist
posture and expansionist policies of Israeli leaders are not restricted to the
Israeli right. Former Labor leader Ehud Barak was as much determined in 2000
at Camp Davidnot to withdraw from the West Bank, Jerusalem, or dismantle
the settlements.

For decades the world waited for Israel
to decide its destiny by choosing two out of three defining elements: its
Jewish character, its claim to democracy, and the lands of so-called “greater Israel.” If it
chose to retain its Jewish majority and claim to be democratic, it had to
withdraw from the lands it occupied in 1967. If it insists on incorporating the
lands and have a democracy it would have to integrate its Arab populations
while forsaking its Jewish exceptionalism in a secular state. Yet sadly but
true to its Zionist nature, Israel
chose to maintain its Jewish exclusiveness over all of historical Palestine to transform
itself into a manifestly Apartheid state.

Political Zionism and the True Nature of the IsraeliState

For over a century political Zionism has evoked intense
passions and emotions on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: its
ardent supporters as well as its critics and hapless victims. Zionists hail
their enterprise as a national liberation movement for the Jewish people while
its opponents condemn it as a racist ideology that practiced ethnic cleansing,
instituted racial and religious discrimination, and committed war crimes to
realize its goals.

On November 10, 1975 the United Nations General Assembly
adopted resolution 3379that determined Zionism as a “form of
racism and racial discrimination.” However, it was revoked 16 years later under tremendous pressure from
the U.S.
and other Western countries in the aftermath of the first Gulf war in 1991.
Oftentimes, the public is denied unfiltered information about the true nature
of political Zionism and its declared state. And unfortunately the media
conglomerates rarely cover that aspect of the conflict, which contributes to
the public’s confusion and exasperation.

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has passed laws and
implemented policies that institutionalized discrimination against its Arab
Palestinian minority. In the aftermath of its 1967 invasion, it instituted a
military occupation regime that has denied basic human and civil rights to
millions of Palestinians whose population now exceeds the number of Israeli
Jews in the land within historical Palestine.
In addition, in defiance of international law, Israel has obstinately refused to
allow the descendants of the Palestinian people that it expelled in 1948 and
1967 to return to their homes, while allowing millions of people of other
nationalities the right to become citizens of the Israeli state upon arrival
simply because they are Jewish.

Zionist leaders from Ben-Gurion to Netanyahu have always
claimed that Israel
was a democracy similar to other Western liberal democracies. But perhaps the
best way to examine this claim and illustrate the nature of the modern Zionist
state is through a comparative analogy (a similar example could also be found
in Israeli historian Shlomo Sand’sbook).

What if a Western country claiming to be a democracy, such
as the U.S. or the U.K., were
officially to change its constitution and system to become the state of the
White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs)? Even though its African, Hispanic,
Asian, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim citizens as well as other minorities would
still have the right to vote, hold political offices, and enjoy some civil and
social rights, they would have to submit to the new nature and exclusive
character of the WASP state. Moreover, with the exception of the WASP class of
citizens, no other citizen would be allowed to buy or sell any land, and there
would be permanent constitutional laws that would forbid any WASP from selling
any property to any members of other ethnicities or religions in the country.
Its Congress or parliament would pass laws that would also forbid any WASP from
marrying outside his or her social class, and if any such “illegal” marriage
were to take place, it would not be recognized by the state. As for
immigration, only WASPs from around the world would be welcome. In fact, there
would be no restrictions on their category as any WASP worldwide could claim
immediate citizenship upon arrival in the country with full economic and social
benefits granted by the state, while all other ethnicities are denied.
Furthermore, most of the existing minorities in the country would be subjected
to certain “security” policies in order to allow room for the WASPs coming from
outside. So in many parts of the country, there would be settlements and
colonies constructed only for the new WASP settlers and consequently some of
the non-WASP populations would have to be restricted or relocated. In these new
settlements the state would designate WASP-only roads, WASP-only schools,
WASP-only health clinics, WASP-only shopping malls, WASP-only parks or swimming
pools. There would also be a two-tier health care system, educational system,
criminal justice system, and social welfare system. In this dual system for
example, if a WASP assaults or kills a non-WASP he would receive a small fine
or a light sentence that would not exceed few years, while if a non-WASP
murders a WASP, even accidentally, he would receive a harsh or mandatory life
sentence. In this system, where the police is exclusively staffed by WASPs, the
Supreme Court would routinely sanction the use of torture against any non-WASP,
subject to the judgment of the security officers. Such a system would clearly
be so manifestly racist, patently criminal, and globally abhorred that no one
would stand by it or defend it. But could such a regime even exist or be
accepted in today’s world? (I realize that some people may argue that many of
these practices had actually occurred in the past against certain segments of
the population in some Western societies. But no government today would dare to
embrace this model or defend its policies.)

Yet, because of the Zionist nature of the Israeli state,
this absurd example is actually a reality with varying degrees for the daily
lives of the Palestinian people, whether they are nominal citizens of the
state, live under occupation or under siege, or have been blocked for decades
from returning back to their homes, towns, and villages. Such a system would
not only be condemned but no decent human being or a country that respects the
rule of law would associate with it or tolerate it.

From its early days, prominent Jewish intellectuals have condemned the racist nature
of the Zionist state. Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt wrote in 1948 condemning Zionist leaders of Israel who
“openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state.” Israeli scientist and
thinker Israel Shahak considered Israel as “a racist state in the
full meaning of this term, where the Palestinians are discriminated against, in
the most permanent and legal way and in the most important areas of life, only
because of their origin.” Renowned American intellectualNoam Chomsky considers Israel’s
actions in Palestine as even “much worse than
Apartheid” ever was in South
Africa. Israeli historian Ilan Pappé argues that “The Zionist goal from the very
beginning was to have as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians
in it as possible,” while American historian Howard Zinnthought that “Zionism is a mistake.”
American academic and author Norman
Finkelstein has often spoken out against the racist nature of the
Zionist state and condemned its manipulation of the Nazi Holocaust to justify
its colonization of Palestine.
British historian Tony Judtdescribed Israel as “an anachronism” because
of its exclusive nature in comparison to its “non-Jewish citizens.” Former UN
Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine ProfessorRichard Falk called Israeli policies in the OccupiedTerritories
“a crime against humanity” and compared Israel’s treatment of the
Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of the Jews and has said, “I think the
Palestinians stand out as the most victimized people in the world.” Very
recently, prominent American Jewish academics posed the question: “Can we continue to embrace a state
that permanently denies basic rights to another people?” Their answer was an
emphatic call for a complete boycott against the Zionist state.

Furthermore, Israeli politicians and religious leaders
regularly use racist rhetoric to appeal to their constituents and articulate
their policies. In the last Israeli elections in March, Prime Minister
Netanyahu tweeted to the Israeli public, “The right-wing
government is in danger. Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls.”
Former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman advocated new ethnic cleansing through “the transfer”
of Palestinian citizens from the state. One prominent Rabbi considered “killing Palestinians a religious duty,”
while another declared that “It is not only desirable to do so, but
it is a religious duty that you hold his head down to the ground and hit him
until his last breath.” Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, one of
the most senior religious leaders in Israel ruled that “there was absolutely no moral prohibition
against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive
military offensive on Gaza.”
Racism in Israel is so pervasive that a Jewish settler stabbed another Jew, and another settler killed a fellow Jewish settler not because the
perpetrators were threatened, but because the victims looked Arab. Israeli racism
is so widespread among its population that noted journalist Max Blumenthal, who investigated the Israeli society’s
attitudes towards the Palestinians, was himself surprisedto “the extent to which groups and figures,
remarkably similar ideologically and psychologically to the radical right in
the US and to neo-fascist movements across Europe, controlled the heart of
Israeli society and the Israeli government.”

In short, the ideology of political Zionism, as it has amply
been demonstrated within the state of Israel, with its exclusionary
vision and persistent policies of occupying the land and subjugating its
people, has proven without any doubt that it represents a relic of a bygone era
that utterly lacks civilized behavior or claims to a democratic system.
Therefore, any discussion, coverage, analysis, or debate of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict that sidesteps the nature and ideology of the
Israeli state is not only disingenuous and lacks credibility, but also
contributes to the deepening of the conflict, the continuous suffering of its
victims, and the illusion of finding a potential just and peaceful
outcome.

About the author:Dr. Sami Al-Arian is a Palestinian academic and
intellectual. He lived for four decades in the U.S.
before relocating to Turkey
in 2015. Because of his long activism for the Palestinian cause and defending
human and civil rights, he was a political prisoner in the U.S. and spent
over a decade in prison and under house arrest until the charges were dropped
in 2014. He can be contacted at nolandsman1948@gmail.com

BB: Slideshows

BB: Poetry and Fiction - Click on picture

BB: Quotes from the TALMUD

BB: Talmudic Quotes

RESPONSE: The above quote is a wrong inference from a fiscal law in Shulchan Oruch, Choshen Mishpat 405.3, that relates to times when slavery was a standard and accepted practice across the world.

BLOGGER: Response is BS. Even during the time mentioned above, the quote of Talmud, which is supposed to be a holy book, should not be as it is.

CLAIM 02: "It is permitted to take the body and the life of a Gentile." Sepher ikkarim III c 25.

RESPONSE: This is a misquotation. Rabbi Yosef Albo (the author) was asked by a Christian thinker about seeming injustice of the laws of Judaism dealing with charging interest on a loan. (According to Deuteronomy 23:20 and 23:21, a Jew is not allowed to lend with interest to another Jew, but may do so to a Gentile).

R. Albo answers: The "Gentile" or "heathen" in the above passage refers to idolater, who refuses to keep seven Noahide laws. The laws are universal for all mankind: A) prohibition of idolatry, B) prohibition of blasphemy, C) prohibition of murder, D) prohibition of immorality and promiscuity, E) prohibition of theft, F) establishment of judicial system, G) prohibition of cruelty to animals.

Such a person, who does not respect other's rights, places himself apart from human community and therefore can expect to be treated according to his own rules. He is a threat to everyone around and hence if somebody kills him, that person is not charged. On the contrary, even according to non-Jewish philosophers in those days (14th and 15th century, Spain), as R Albo brings, such a person should be killed. So it is regarding money matters: the prohibition of taking interest, that applies to everybody, including a non-Jew who keeps the Noahide laws (as R. Albo mentions a few sentences earlier), do not apply to him.

BLOGGER: What a crackpot full of steaming shit. First, an idolater is not obliged to follow the Nohide laws. Second, even if he is, but violates them all or part thereof, he does not deserve to be killed by someone. Third, one can not just kill someone who has a different belief. Anybody is free to believe in whatever he wants as far as no harm isdone to those living around him when the belief is carried out into action.

CLAIM 03: "It is the law to kill anyone who denies the Torah. The Christians belong to the denying ones of theTorah." Coschen hamischpat 425 Hagah 425.

RESPONSE: This is from the Shulcan Aruch and applies to killing Jewish heretics. The following line in this passage is that this law does not apply to anyone non-Jewish and it is forbidden to harm any gentile. The Jewish heretics are people which are a potential cause of harm and trouble to the Jewish nation. The penalty is designed to demonstrate the severity with which heretical views were considered, rather than a practical penalty as such penalties were rarely imposed. E.S./David S. Maddison.

BLOGGER: The quote says, “anyone who denies the Torah”, then immediately followed by, “The Christians belong to the denying ones of the Torah.” I cannot find any reference to Jewish heretics, or “it is forbidden to harm any gentile”. Response is nothing but hogwash.

BB: Monthly news of rabbis sexual perversion & other crimes.

Click on picture!

BB: Pervert Rabbis

BB: Cases of shame

CASES OF SHAME: What is a rabbi?

The word "Rabbi" refers to one of the ancient scribes - supposedly a holy man - who participated in writing the "Talmud". In Arabic, which is a Semitic language and a cousin to Hebrew, the word is"Rabbanie", or "Rabbie", means a godly man. My question is, are they really godly? I strongly doubt that. Below are some of their news…

Israel's new Ashkenazi chief rabbi case: JERUSALEM: Israel's new Ashkenazi chief rabbi is facing growing calls to step down amid allegations of misconduct. The allegations center on sexual harassment charges against Yona Metzger, as well as charges that he engaged in fraud and is not qualified for the post. Aides to Metzger have rejected the allegations as a smear campaign fueled by political rivals.

Metzger and his Sephardi counterpart, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, were elected as Israel's chief rabbis April 14 by a 150-member public committee. Since then, however,opposition to Metzger has grown. In the latest development, a Tel Aviv accountant filed a petition Monday in the High Court of Justice challenging Metzger's appointment. It will be heard by a three-judge panel.

The petition claims that allegations of fraud and other improprieties involving Metzger were not fully investigated because of his 1998 pledge not to stand for chief rabbi of Tel Aviv. Metzger's spokesman, Roni Rimon, told the Israeli daily Ma'ariv that the petition was full of "lies, lies and more lies" produced by "professional slanderers.". Metzger had been accused of forging witnesses' signatures on marriage contracts and unlawfully demanding payment for performing weddings, the daily Ha'aretz reported. As a result of the allegations, Metzger's permit to serve as a chief rabbi of a major city was revoked. However, it was reinstated several months later after a hearing before three senior Israeli rabbis -- including Eliyahu Bakshi - Doron, a former Sephardi chief rabbi -- who accepted Metzger's explanations and his commitment to leave the Tel Aviv race, the paper said.

The petition also argues that the Metzger, 50, who previously was rabbi of north Tel Aviv, was not qualified tofill the chief rabbi's duties as head of the country's rabbinic court system because he never had been a religious judge or rabbi of a major city. Thepetition maintained that the elections committee for the chief rabbi was not adequately informed of the misconduct allegations against Metzger. In related development, Ma'ariv recently published what it said were sexual harassment allegations involving Metzger. Three weeks before Metzger's election as chiefrabbi, the paper reported, it learned of complaints from four adult men whoclaimed Metzger had touched their arms, legs and chests and expressed admiration for their muscular physiques.

Park Avenue rabbi Case:A prominent Park Avenue rabbi had a mistress nearly half his age sign a bizarre cohabitation contract - promising she’d get liposuction, become better educated and continue their already hot-and-heavy sexual relationship in exchange for half his house, the woman claims in a bombshell lawsuit. Janet Pizzo says she had a seven-year affair with the married Metropolitan Synagogue Rabbi Joel Goor - which included recurring steamy sex in his rabbinical office while he lied to his wife about his whereabouts. But their courtship crumbled when she suspected him of having another girlfriend, and he’s since become vindictive. She even caught him on audio tape threatening to prance around their Bronxhome naked in front of her 17-year-old daughter.

You’ve got to move,” Goor says, according to an audio tape reviewed by The Post. “This is my house . . . I’m allowed to walk around nude in my house. So you better tell [her daughter] Mary,” Goor told Pizzo.“I’m allowed to walk round this house . . . and I’m going to.”. Goor’s lawyer declined to comment on the allegations. “I truly loved this guy, I really did,” said a weepy Pizzo, 48, complaining how the 73-year-old Man of God locked her out of their bedroom, removed the cushions from her couch and vowed to unplug the refrigerator. http://www.canonist.com/?p=1245

Zionist Israel

1.
"There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in
ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are
our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters
away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but
actually belong to a different galaxy." Israeli president Moshe Katsav.
The Jerusalem
Post, May 10, 2001

2.
"The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they
want more".... Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August
28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem
Post August 30, 2000

3.
" [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs." Menahim Begin,
speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the
Beasts". New Statesman, 25 June 1982.

4.
"The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads
smashed against the boulders and walls." Isreali Prime Minister (at
the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988

5.
"When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it
will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael
Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April
1983.

6.
"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return
them to." Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.

7.
"There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed." Golda
Maier Israeli Prime Minister June 15, 1969

8.
"The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967
and that Israel
was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed
after the war." Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972.

9.
David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): "If I were an Arab
leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken
their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest
them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler,
Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see
but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they
accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish
Paradox), pp121.

10.
Ben Gurion also warned in 1948 : "We must do everything to insure they (
the Palestinians) never do return." Assuring his fellow Zionists that
Palestinians will never come back to their homes. "The old will die and
the young will forget."

11.
"We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live
here as slaves." Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of
General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.

12.
"Every time we do something you tell me America
will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear:
Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people,
control America,
and the Americans know it." - Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon,
October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio. (Certainly
the FBI's cover-up of the Israeli spy ring/phone
tap scandal suggests that Mr. Sharon may not have been joking.)

13.
"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one
centimeter of Eretz Israel...
Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until
the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of
Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983,
New York Times 14 April 1983.

14.
"We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do
return" David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael
Bar Zohar's Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.

15." ... we should prepare to go over to the offensive with the aim of
smashing Lebanon,
Trans-jordan and Syria...
The weak point in the Arab coalition is Lebanon [for] the Moslem regime is
artificial and easy to undermine. A Christian state should be established...
When we smash the [Arab] Legions strength and bomb Amman,
we will eliminate Transjordan, too, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight on, we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandria, and Cairo." " David
Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by
Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte,
New York 1978.

16.
"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and
the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee
of its Arab population." Israel
Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum"

17."Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even
know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography
books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are
not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the
place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in
the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country
that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan, address to the
Technion, Haifa,
reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.

18.
"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his
question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved
his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'" Yitzhak Rabin, leaked
censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October
1979.

19.Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan
Dalet. "We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters
and waiters" Uri Lubrani, PM Ben-Gurion's special adviser on Arab Affairs,
1960. From "The Arabs in Israel"
by Sabri Jiryas.

20.
"There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high
percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance;
and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry
out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant.
[I] tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument:...the need
to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish...with a
non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this
fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary."
Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department. From Israel: an Apartheid State
by Uri Davis, p.5.

21.
"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to
enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...
Everything we don't grab will go to them." Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign
Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet
Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

22.
"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly
and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The
first of these is that there is no Zionism,colonialization or Jewish State
without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."
Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.

23.
"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it
employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor
must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder
of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine,Complete
Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.

25.
"We Jews, we are the destroyers and will remain the destroyers. Nothing
you can do will meet our demands and needs. We will forever destroy because we
want a world of our own." (You Gentiles, by Jewish Author Maurice Samuels,
p. 155).

26.
"We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only
question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or
consent." (Jewish Banker Paul Warburg, February 17, 1950, as he testified
before the U.S. Senate).

27.
"We will establish ourselves in Palestine
whether you like it or not...You can hasten our arrival or you can equally
retard it. It is however better for you to help us so as to avoid our
constructive powers being turned into a destructive power which will overthrow
the world." (Chaim Weizmann, Published in "Judische Rundschau,"
No. 4, 1920)

28.
"Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as
different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared
to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races
are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior
races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The
masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves." - Israeli prime
Minister Menachem Begin in a speech to the Knesset [Israeli Parliament] quoted
by Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts," New Statesman, June 25,
1982

29.
"Tell me, do the evil men of this world have a bad time? They hunt and
catch whatever they feel like eating. They don't suffer from indigestion and
are not punished by Heaven. I want Israel to join that club. Maybe the
world will then at last begin to fear us instead of feeling sorry. Maybe they
will start to tremble, to fear our madness instead of admiring our nobility.
Let them tremble; let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are
a savage country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go
wild, that we might start World War Three just like that, or that we might one
day go crazy and burn all the oil fields in the Middle East. Even if you'll
prove to me that the present war is a dirty immoral war, I don't care. We shall
start another war, kill and destroy more and more. And do you know why it is
all worth it? Because it seems that this war has made us more unpopular among
the civilized world.We'll hear no more of that nonsense about the unique Jewish
morality. No more talk about a unique people being a light upon the nations. No
more uniqueness and no more sweetness and light. Good riddance." -- Former
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

30.
"The Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the twentieth century, in
particular, is the Jewish Century." -Yuri Slezkine, Professor of History
at University of California,
Berkeley, "The Jewish Century"; Princeton University Press

31.
"What shocks and worries me is the narrow-mindedness and the
shortsightedness of our military leaders. They seem to presume that the State
of Israel may or even must-behave in the realm of international relations
according to the laws of the jungle- -the long chain of false incidents and
hostilities we have invented, and so many clashes we have provoked;" - From
Diary of Moshe Sharett, former Primer Minister of Israel in Livia Rokach,
Israel's Sacred Terrorism published 980

32.Hebrew essayist Achad Ha-Am, after paying a visit to Palestine in 1891:
"Abroad we are accustomed to believe that Israel is almost empty; nothing
is grown here and that whoever wishes to buy land could come here and buy what
his heart desires. In reality, the situation is not like this. Throughout the
country it is difficult to find cultivable land which is not already
cultivated."

33.The Balfour Declaration to Baron Rothchild, on the 2nd of November, 1917:
"His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine
of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to
facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that
nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political
status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

34.Lord Sydenham, Hansard, House of Lords, 21 June 1922: "If we are going to
admit claims on conquest thousands of years ago, the whole world will have to
be turned upside down."

35.1923:Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, "Zionist colonization must
either be terminated or carried out against the wishes of the native
population. This colonization can, therefore, be continued and make progress
only under the protection of a power independent of the native population - an
iron wall, which will be in a position to resist the pressure to the native
population. This is our policy towards the Arabs..."

36.
Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism (precursor of Likud), The
Iron Wall, 1923: "A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the
question either now or in the future. If you wish to colonize a land in which
people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land, or find
some rich man or benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf. Or
else-or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will
render physically impossible any attempt to destroy or prevent this colonization,
colonization is impossible, not difficult, not dangerous, but IMPOSSIBLE!...
Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the
question of armed force. It is important... to speak Hebrew, but,
unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot - or else I am
through with playing at colonizing."

38.
Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department in 1940. From
"A Solution to the Refugee Problem": "Between ourselves it must
be clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country. We
shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this small country. There is no
other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries - all
of them. Not one village, not one tribe should be left."

39.Israeli official Arthur Lourie in a letter to Walter Eytan, director general of
the Israeli Foreign Ministry (ISA FM 2564/22). From Benny Morris, "The
Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-49", p. 297: "...if
people become accustomed to the large figure and we are actually obliged to
accept the return of the refugees, we may find it difficult, when faced with
hordes of claimants, to convince the world that not all of these formerly lived
in Israeli territory. It would, in any event, seem desirable to minimize the
numbers...than otherwise."

40.David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben- Gurion, A
Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte,
New York 1978: "We should
prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak
point is Lebanon,
for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish
a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate
Trans-Jordan; Syria
will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port
Said, Alexandria
and Sinai."

41.BenDavid -Gurion, one of the father founders of Israel,
described Zionist aims in 1948: "A Christian state should be established
[in Lebanon],
with its southern border on the Litani river. We will make an alliance with it.
When we smash the Arab Legion's strength and bomb Amman,
we will eliminate Transjordan too, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight on, we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo... And in this
fashion, we will end the war and settle our forefathers' account with Egypt, Assyria, and Aram"

42.
[Begin, and Yitzhak Shamir who were members of the party became Prime
Ministers.] Albert Einstein, Hanna Arendt and other prominent Jewish Americans,
writing in The New York Times, protest the visit to America of Menachem Begin,
December 1948: "Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time
is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the Freedom Party
(Herut), a political party closely akin in its organization, method, political
philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties."

43.Martin Buber, Jewish Philosopher, addressed Prime Minister Ben Gurion on the
moral character of the state of Israel
with reference to the Arab refugees in March 1949. "We will have to face
the reality that Israel
is neither innocent, nor redemptive. And that in its creation, and expansion;
we as Jews, have caused what we historically have suffered; a refugee
population in Diaspora."

44.Moshe Dayan (Israel
Defense and Foreign Minister), on February 12 1952. Radio "Israel.":
"It lies upon the people's shoulders to prepare for the war, but it lies
upon the Israeli army to carry out the fight with the ultimate object of
erecting the Israeli Empire."

45.Martin Buber, to a NewYork audience, Jewish
Newsletter, June 2, 1958: "When we [followers of the prophetic Judaism]
returned to Palestine...the
majority of Jewish people preferred to learn from Hitler rather than from
us."

46.Aba Eban (the Israeli Foreign Minister) stated arrogantly. New York Times June
19, 1967: "If the General Assembly were to vote by 121 votes to 1 in favor
of "Israel"
returning to the armistice lines-- (pre June 1967 borders) "Israel"
would refuse to comply with the decision."

47.Dr. Israel Shahak, Chairperson of the Israeli League for Human and Civil
Rights, and a survivor of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Commenting on
the Israeli military's Emergency Regulations following the 1967 War. Palestine, vol. 12,
December 1983: "Hitler's legal power was based upon the 'Enabling Act',
which was passed quite legally by the Reichstag and which allowed the Fuehrer
and his representatives, in plain language, to be what they wanted, or in legal
language, to issue regulations having the force of law. Exactly the same type
of act was passed by the Knesset [Israeli's Parliament] immediately after the
1067 conquest granting the Israeli governor and his representatives the power
of Hitler, which they use in Hitlerian manner."

48.
Joseph Weitz, Director of the Jewish National Fund, the Zionist agency charged
with acquiring Palestinian land, Circa 194. Machover Israca, January 5, 1973
/p.2: "The only solution is Eretz Israel
[Greater Israel], or at least Western Eretz Israel
[all the land west of Jordan River], without
Arabs. There is no room for compromise on this point ... We must not leave a
single village, not a single tribe."

49.
Israeli Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, Inferring that killing isn't murder if the
victim is Gentile. Jerusalem Post, June 19,1989: "Jewish blood and a goy's
[gentile's] blood are not the same."

50.Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister
of Israel, tells students at Bar Ilan University,
From the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989: "Israel should have exploited the repression of
the demonstrations in China,
when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions
among the Arabs of the territories."

51.
Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service
for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem
Domestic Radio Service: "The past leaders of our movement left us a clear
message to keep Eretz Israel
from the Sea to the Jordan River for future
generations, for the mass aliya [immigration], and for the Jewish people, all
of whom will be gathered into this country."

52.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16,
2000: "If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000
dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more
force...."

53.Ben Gurion: In 1899, Davis Triestsch wrote to Herzl: " I would suggest to
you to come round in time to the "Greater Palestine" program before
it is too late... the Basle program must contain the words "Great
Palestine" or "Palestine and its neighboring lands" otherwise
it's nonsense. You do not get ten million Jews into a land of 25,000 Km2".
" The present map of Palestine
was drawn by the British mandate. The Jewish people have another map which our
youth and adults should strive to fulfill -- From the Nile to the Euphrates."

54.Vladimir Jabotinsky (the founder and advocate of the Zionist terrorist
organizations), Quoted by Maxime Rodinson in Peuple Juif ou Problem Juif.
(Jewish People or Jewish Problem): "Has any People ever been seen to give
up their territory of their own free will? In the same way, the Arabs of
Palestine will not renounce their sovereignty without violence."

We
enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international
treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the
occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these
activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we
developed two judicial systems: one - progressive, liberal - in Israel; and the
other - cruel, injurious - in the occupied territories. In effect, we
established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately
following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.

BB: MOSSAD

BB: ADAM YAHIYE GADAHN: A Jew who pretended to have converted to Islam assumed different aliases.

BB:They Pretended to have converted to Islam, and started talking violently to smear Islam Muslims.

BB: They call themselves Jews though their ancestors never set foot in Palestine.

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